Brent crude futures were trading at $47.34 per barrel at 1021 GMT, up 24 cents from their last settlement.
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OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report for September, showed that Nigeria’s oil output fell to 1.468 million bpd in August from 1.52 million bpd in the previous month, based on direct communication.
According to Barkindo, “it is quite obvious; nearly elementary to all commentators that what we saw prior to the correction in 2014, when oil sold for as high as over $100 a barrel and at a time $140 a barrel was something that was abnormal”. Carsten Fritsch of Commerzbank told Reuters: “We are at the top end of the recent price range at the moment and will move toward the lower end”.
Talks in Algiers on Sept 27 will face the same political obstacles that thwarted the effort in Doha, which collapsed because of Saudi Arabia’s last-minute insistence that Iran needed to join in, according to Commerzbank AG.
“As for the market’s return to balance – it looks like we may have to wait a while longer”.
Research Consultancy Energy Aspects expects crude oil prices to trade between $45 per barrel and $55 per barrel in 2016 due to high crude oil inventories and high OPEC production. His Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, has affirmed that the two nations were seeking ways to ease oil market volatility.
With this in mind, prolonging the negotiations may be better than concluding an agreement that does nothing to reduce the global surplus, said Olivier Jakob, managing director of consulting firm Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland.
The IEA states that next year’s predictions are due to “underlying macroeconomic conditions” remaining “uncertain”.
The average price of a barrel of oil has plummeted from $115 in June 2014 to below $30 in January this year.
The WSJ says worries about sluggish global growth and the continued oversupply have led Morgan Stanley analysts to say they are losing confidence in their prediction that the oil market will be re-balanced by mid-2017. Prices held most of the 55 per cent gain amassed in the three months before the Doha meeting, even though that ended with no agreement, thanks to supply disruptions in Kuwait, Canada and Nigeria.
According to the report, Africa’s oil supply is projected to average 2.12 million bpd in 2016.
“Long suffering oil bulls will now turn nervously to the U.S. EIA’s commercial crude inventory numbers to be released this evening in NY”, said OANDA’s senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley. It said “despite oil’s collapse and resulting investment cuts, global oil production is still expanding – although nowhere near the breakneck pace of 2015”.
IEA’s forecast followed a report on Monday by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries which predicted that non-member countries would see output rise in 2017, revising its previous expectations of a drop. Producers are expected to meet in Algeria on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum from September 26 to 28.
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Last week Russian Federation, one of the world’s three biggest crude oil producers, and Saudi Arabia discussed cooperating on a freeze in output, but the pair have flirted with cooperation in the past to no avail.
